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Halloween and Witches

The word witch can refer
to a person who practices witchcraft or magic or to a Wiccan, a person
who practices the religion Wicca. In colloquial use the word is now
applied almost exclusively to women, though in earlier English it
applied to men as well. Most people would now call male witches
sorcerers, wizards, or warlocks. Wiccans continue to use the term witch
for all who practice witchcraft. Warlock is considered an insult among
Wiccans and Neopagans.

The etymological roots could be several: among the candidates are German
weihen ("consecrate") as well as the English word "victim" in its
original meaning for someone killed in a religious ritual. Thus, a
"witch" would signify nothing else but an ancient type of priestess. The
Old English words wicca (m.) and its feminine counterpart wicce both
mean wizard and gave rise to the adjective "wicked". Wizard, again is
thought to be related to the modern term "wise". A cautious
interpretation gives us a witch being a woman of (presumably occult)
knowledge.

The belief in witches has always existed in nearly every region of the
world, including Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas. In Western
culture, the concept of a witch has existed since at least the days of
the ancient Greeks, as witches figure prominently in many Greek
tragedies.

American and European Witches

The recoded instance that witches fly about on
sticks or brooms was in the tenth century, and the origin of witch's
brew lies in the belief that witches were cannibals who feasted on
baby's flesh and made potions of obscene and blasphemous materials.

During the middle ages and up to about the mid-19th century, witches
were universally associated with evil, under the belief that the witch's
magical powers were granted by Satan in exchange for the witch's soul.
Many outrageous claims were made about the powers of witches, which
include the ability to fly, to transform oneself or others into animals
or other shapes, and to curse one's enemies.

It was extremely dangerous to be accused of being a "witch", since a
common punishment was to be burnt at the stake. Both in North America
and in Europe, thousands of people (mostly women), were put to death as
witches at various points in history. Some of the worst witch hunts were
in Germany, though there are documented cases of torture and murder in
the name of stopping witchcraft in nearly every European country.

Most people who were killed as witches were probably hapless midwives,
herbalists, widows, spinsters, social outcasts, or victims of revenge
seekers. For example, some researchers wholly attribute the Salem witch
trials in 1692 to rivalries between opposing political forces in Salem,
Massachusetts. See the extensive discussion under witch hunts.

Witches in Modern Culture

In modern days, few people believe in witches
that curse enemies, change shapes, or can fly. However, since the last
last half of the 1800s Neopagans (mostly Wiccans a subset of Neopagans),
have called themselves witches and while most of western culture
continues to assign negative connotations to the word, to a Wiccan, it
is not a derogatory term, nor does it have anything to do with Satanism.
In fact, many Wiccans wish to reclaim the term "witch" and make it
positive. The term "white witch" is sometimes used to refer to an
exclusively positive meaning of the word, although others reject this
term feeling that it is racially insensitive.

In 1968, a group of radical politically active women formed a protest
organization in the City of New York called W.I.T.C.H, standing for
"Women's International Terrorist Conspiracy From Hell".

Today, witches are iconically associated with Halloween, though Wiccans
actually celebrate Samhain. Both dates are the same, and are at least
metaphorically similar in meaning. This is not coincidence. Christianity
had a basic contempt for the supernatural overtones of the festival. The
association between "witches" and Halloween most certainly came from
vilification of practitioners of the Celtic celebration of the last
harvest.

Witches also appear as villians in many 19th- and 20th-century fairy
tales, folk tales and children's stories, such as "Snow White and the
Seven Dwarfs", "Hansel and Gretel", "Sleeping Beauty", and many other
stories recorded by the Brothers Grimm. Such folktales typically portray
witches as either remarkably ugly hags or remarkably beautiful young
women. In the classic story The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
the villain is a bad witch but two good witches play important roles as
well.

Witches have come into the mainstream in the last decade as well as
common pop-culture figures. Teenage and young adult witches have been
the focus or appeared in the movies "The Craft", "Practical Magic" and
"Blair Witch Project 2" (the sequel to The Blair Witch Project), as well
as in the television programs "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", "Charmed",
"Sabrina the Teenage Witch", and episodes of "The X-Files". Such
neo-Gothic portrayals bear little relationship to Wicca, or even a
Christian view of witches for that matter. In almost all cases witches
portrayed in movies and TV shows today are attractive women who have
supernatural powers. In the Harry Potter universe, a witch is a female
wizard.